Thursday, 9 June 2016

Here we are in Arlington,VA across the river from Washington, DC. We setting up at The National Needlework Assoc Show tomorrow and will spend the weekend talking to Store Owners who have come to shop. Our flight was uneventful, except for being picked out of the security line to have all my belonging searched and to have a very lovely security woman give me a pat down or a gentle all-over massage as she called it, ha, ha. Nothing in my shoes, nothing on my hands, nothing in my suitcases, good to go.

I started my new socks again, having for some strange reason decided to make this particular pair an inch too small. Rip, rip, rip. The good news is that I am much bettter with these needles after knitting part of a sock.

These are Neko needles. It's very much like knitting with 2 circular needles. The needles are plastic and very flexible so I'm finding them fairly easy to use. The curve fits in your hand and the trick seems to be how to hold them so the ends of the needles don't impede progress.

Progress is being made. Yay. They are pretty interesting to knit with. I wonder if I got a larger set, if they would be good for knitting sleeves? They definitely have possibilities.
I got these needles from Tracy at A River of Yarn in Canada.
Deb

Monday, 6 June 2016

It's the end of our Knitting Guild year. Yesterday we spent it at Linda's house learning to knit Mosaic boxes and V-neck Top Down knitting. It was a great day. Here we are, knitters hard at work, ha, ha.

Really we were learning how to read a mosaic chart. They are different from other charts.
Mosaic is colour knitting, working with only 1 colour across the row at a time. You knit the stitches you want to show in the particular colour you're working with and slip all the other sts. It's often found in your stitch dictionary in the Slip Stitch section.

Each row of the chart requires two passes (rows) of the same colour. With the Light Colour work the first row of the chart two times (Rows 1 & 2), once with the Right Side facing and back again on the Wrong Side. Now move to the second row of the chart and with the Dark Colour work it across on the Right Side and back again on the Wrong Side (Rows 3 & 4). Every row of the chart is worked twice with the same colour. Then the next row of the chart is worked twice with the next colour, alternating 2 rows Light and 2 rows Dark. It makes mosaic charts different from any other type of chart. Geometric designs result. The different colours make it look different.

These two below, have the colours reversed. The boxes are Light and the Background is Dark. To read the chart above and switch the light and dark is a real challenge and K & T did a terrific job.

Boo, hoo, that's it for Guild nights for a while. I'm going to miss my knitting buddies over the summer. Looking forward to seeing everyone in September.
Deb

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Adding a little bit of Mosaic to this vest really makes it look different. Can't wait until the class I'm teaching on Sunday gets started so I can see how it looks in different colours. I did it in Cotton Tweed Denim with Sky Blue. It would look more dramatic with a greater contrast between the colours.

As you know, blue is my go-to colour. But I'm going to see what other colours I can choose to make more impact. The vests in the class will give me some good ideas I bet. Now I'm going button shoping. Always an adventure.
-Deb